he Bomb and Civilization (1945) 

 

It is impossible to imagine a more dramatic and 

horrifying combination of scientific triumph with political 
and moral failure than has been shown to the world in the 
destruction of Hiroshima. From the scientific point of view, 
the atomic bomb embodies the results of a combination of 
genius and patience as remarkable as any in the history of 
mankind. Atoms are so minute that it might have seemed 
impossible to know as much as we do about them. A 
million million bundles, each containing a million million 
hydrogen atoms, would weigh about a gram and a half. 
Each hydrogen atom consists of a nucleus, and an electron 
going round the nucleus, as the earth goes round the sun. 
The distance from the nucleus to the electron is usually 
about a hundred-millionth of a centimetre; the electron and 
the nucleus are supposed to be so small that if they could be 
crowded together it would take about ten million million on 
end to fill a centimetre. The nucleus has positive electricity, 
the planetary electron an equal amount of negative 
electricity; the nucleus is about 1850 times as heavy as the 
electron. The hydrogen atom, which I have been 
describing, is the simplest of atoms, but the atom used in 
the atomic bomb is at the other end of the scale. 

 

 

 

 

Uranium, the element chiefly used in the atomic 

bomb, has the heaviest and most complex of atoms. 
Normally there are 92 planetary electrons, while the 
nucleus is made up of about 238 neutrons (which have 
mass without electricity), 238 positrons (which have 
positive electricity and very little mass), and 146 electrons, 
which are like positrons except that their electricity is 
negative. Positrons repel each other, and so do electrons; 
but a positron and electron attract each other. The 
overcrowding of mutually attracted and expelled particles 
in the tiny space of the uranium nucleus involves enormous 
potentially explosive forces. Uranium is slightly 
radioactive, which means that some of its atoms break up 
naturally. But a quicker process than this is required for the 
making of an atomic bomb.

 

 
 

Rutherford found out, about thirty years ago, that little 

bits could be chipped off an atom by bombardment. In 
1939, a more powerful process was discovered: it was 
found that neutrons, entering the nucleus of a uranium 
atom, would cause it to split into two roughly equal halves, 
which would rush off and disrupt other uranium atoms in 
the neighbourhood, and so set up a train of explosions so 
long as there was any of the right kind of uranium to be 
encountered.

 

 
 

Ever since the beginning of the war, the Germans on 

the one side, and the British and Americans on the other, 
have been working on the possibility of an atomic 
explosive. One of the difficulties was to make sure that it 
would not be too effective: there was a fear that it might 

destroy not only the enemy, but the whole planet, and 
naturally experiments were risky. But the difficulties were 
overcome, and now the possibility, which scientists have 
foreseen for over forty years, has entered into the world of 
practical politics. The labours of Rutherford and Bohr, of 
Heisenberg, and Schrödinger, and a number of other 
distinguished men, the ablest men of our time, and most of 
them both high-minded and public-spirited, have borne 
fruit: in an instant, by means of one small bomb, every 
vestige of life throughout four square miles of a populous 
city has been exterminated. As I write, I learn that a second 
bomb has been dropped on Nagasaki.

 

 
 

The prospect for the human race is sombre beyond all 

precedent. Mankind are faced with a clear-cut alternative: 
either we shall all perish, or we shall have to acquire some 
slight degree of common sense. A great deal of new 
political thinking will be necessary if utter disaster is to be 
averted.

 

 
 

For the moment, fortunately, only the United States is 

in a position to manufacture atomic bombs. The immediate 
result must be a rapid end to the Japanese war, whether by 
surrender or by extermination. The power of the United 
States in international affairs is, for the time being, 
immeasurably increased; a month ago, Russia and the 
United States seemed about equal in warlike strength, but 
now this is no longer the case. This situation, however, will 
not last long, for it must be assumed that before long Russia 
and the British Empire will set to work to make these 
bombs for themselves. Uranium has suddenly become the 

most precious of raw materials, and nations will probably 
fight for it as hitherto they have fought for oil. In the next 
war, if atomic bombs are used on both sides, it is to be 
expected that all large cities will be completely wiped out; 
so will all scientific laboratories and all governmental 
centres. Communications will be disrupted, and the world 
will be reduced to a number of small independent 
agricultural communities living on local produce, as they 
did in the Dark Ages. But presumably none of them will 
have either the resources or the skill for the manufacture of 
atomic bombs.

 

 
 

There is another and a better possibility, if men have 

the wisdom to make use of the few years during which it 
will remain open to them. Either war or civilization must 
end, and if it is to be war that ends, there must be an 
international authority with the sole power to make the new 
bombs. All supplies of uranium must be placed under the 
control of the international authority, which shall have the 
right to safeguard the ore by armed forces. As soon as such 
an authority has been created, all existing atomic bombs, 
and all plants for their manufacture, must be handed over. 
And of course the international authority must have 
sufficient armed forces to protect whatever has been 
handed over to it. If this system were once established, the 
international authority would be irresistible, and wars 
would cease. At worst, there might be occasional brief 
revolts that would be easily quelled.

 

 
 

But I fear all this is Utopian. The United States will 

not consent to any pooling of armaments, and no more will 

Soviet Russia. Each will insist on retaining the means of 
exterminating the other, on the ground that the other is not 
to be trusted.

 

 
 

If America were more imperialistic there would be 

another possibility, less Utopian and less desirable, but still 
preferable to the total obliteration of civilized life. It would 
be possible for Americans to use their position of 
temporary superiority to insist upon disarmament, not only 
in Germany and Japan, but everywhere except in the United 
States, or at any rate in every country not prepared to enter 
into a close military alliance with the United States, 
involving compulsory sharing of military secrets. During 
the next few years, this policy could be enforced; if one or 
two wars were necessary, they would be brief, and would 
soon end in decisive American victory. In this way a new 
League of Nations could be formed under American 
leadership, and the peace of the world could be securely 
established. But I fear that respect for international justice 
will prevent Washington from adopting this policy.

 

 
 

In view of the reluctance of mankind to form 

voluntarily an effective international authority, we must 
hope, and perhaps we may expect, that after the next world 
war some one Power will emerge with such preponderant 
strength as to be able to establish a peaceful hegemony over 
the rest of the globe. The next war, unless it comes very 
soon, will endanger all civilized government; but if any 
civilized government survives and achieves supremacy, 
there will again be a possibility of ordered progress and the 
utilization of science for happiness rather than for 

destruction.

 

 
 

One is tempted to feel that Man is being punished, 

through the agency of his own evil passions, for impiety in 
inquiring too closely into the hidden secrets of nature. But 
such a feeling is unduly defeatist. Science is capable of 
conferring enormous boons: it can lighten labour, abolish 
poverty, and enormously diminish disease. But if science is 
to bring benefits instead of death, we must bring to bear 
upon social, and especially international, organization, 
intelligence of the same high order that has enabled us to 
discover the structure of the atom. To do this effectively we 
must free ourselves from the domination of ancient 
shibboleths, and think freely, fearlessly and rationally about 
the new and appalling problems with which the human race 
is confronted by its conquest of scientific power.